account I hope you will forgive me if I do touch on certain
aspects which are outside the scope of purely Military ones.
Lastly, I would like to make it clear that such views as I
am expressing are my own, and should in no way be looked upon as
being those officially held in the War Office or elsewhere.
2. THE BACKGROUND
The FAR EAST is to-day a singularly unstable part of the
World. If the Military problems facing us there are to be expressed in any easily understandable way one must start probing into what is at the root of this instability. It is of course
the spread of Communism; a doctrine that countenances the use of force, unrestricted force, as a weapon the use of which is fully justified in the Communist mind by the ends to be achieved.
While it is true to say that in the period immediately following upon the cessation of hostilities in theFar East, a surge of Nationalism made its appearance there, I would say that, over all, this Nationalism has been engulfed by Communism in the course of the last three years. The urge that Nationalism engenders has been harnessed to serve the Communist ends. May be that some of us did not recognise clearly enough Communism concealed under the cloak of Nationalism and were therefore not sufficiently on our guard.
But, be that as it may,
all the immediate Military problems of the Far East spring from the advance of Communism there.
All these Military problems
are merely "splinter-problems" from this.
With this as my general background I would like to touch
on the overall effects of the spread of Communism in the Far East before turning to some of the concrete problems that arise
there as the consequence of it.
/But
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